The Green Card lottery

Factual Questions
1

(No, I’m not planning to emigrate to the US. I just wonder why people seem to be willing to pay for something you are entitled to get for free.)

Each year, the US is allotting a certain quota of Permanent Resident Visas, commonly known as Green Cards, to immigrants in spe. To be eligible, you have to fulfil certain requirements (level of education, come from a country that’s not excluded, and stuff), and if you do, you can apply and hope to be drawn a winner (if not, you can try again next year, and again, and again, as often as you want).

Participation is free. All you have to do is mail in a sheet with your personal data and a photograph of yourself. Yet there’s an army of companies that offer Green Card lottery services, which basically means they do all the stuff for you. And they charge you something for that, here in Germany, after checking some of those companies’ websites, the usual fee seems to be some 50 euros or so.

Why the heck are people willing to pay that if they just could mail in their application on their own? The companies say the formal requirements on the applications are extremely strict - everything is regulated, including the size of the envelope. If there’s one flaw, you’re disqualified, and the company makes sure the formal stuff is OK. They also translate everything for you because, of course, the application has to be in English.
I agree that overly cautious people might want to pay that money to be 100 % sure. But it’s not that difficult to do it alright on your own. They don’t want you to write novels, they just want to know your date of birth and some other data along that line. The US embassies will tell you about the details of the lottery for free, and you have the same chances of winning as someone who paid 50 euros, just at the cost of a mail stamp to Migrate, Kentucky, where the appropriate authority is located. So I guess the Green Card service companies are just ripping of their clients, charging hefty fees for doing something you could do on your own in 20 minutes. Right?

2

Some people believe the hype that the companies who provide the service state ,others do it of piece of mind.

Not everyone who is emigrating to the states will have the same level of fluency in english , so its not that big a stretch to take it to a third party.

Declan

3

My husband has applied for his “green card” (but not through the lottery system) and we did all the paperwork ourselves. We are both native English speakers and college educated and filling out the INS-required paperwork was no easy task. Throughout the process, we’ve wondered what people do who are non-English speakers or just don’t have a high literacy level do, short of shelling out tons of money for lawyers or other advisers. In comparison, I’ve gone through most of the steps for a work visa in Australia and it was much more user-friendly. The questions on the application are worded more simply and there just aren’t as many steps to go through. It’s easier to get help if you have a question, too - just shoot an email to the embassy and they get right back to you. With the INS, it’s nearly impossible to get a live person on the phone and the information you get typically isn’t correct (at least in our experience).

There could also be the matter of convenience. I mean, I go and pay $20+ to get my oil changed in my car, which to a lot of people seems really stupid. I mean, why pay for something that I could probably easily learn how to do myself.